Description
Creator
Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
Title(s)
  • Bath
Date
No date
Medium
Pen and ink, watercolour
Dimensions
  • image width 178mm,
  • image length 318mm
Support
two sheets
Inscription
  • sheet, recto, lower right
  • “F.Towne delt 1805”
Object Type
Watercolour

Catalogue Number
FT635
Description Sources
Agnew's records; Witt Library (image)

Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it passed to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (BP238). On 26 February 1940 (the Barton Place catalogue gives April 1940) Judith Merivale sold it for £10 to Agnew’s (no.3042), who sold it the same day to D. L. J. Perkins (b. ca. 1902) for £12 10s., whereafter it was untraced until it was acquired by a private collector.

Associated People & Organisations

Private Collection
D. L. J. Perkins (ca. 1902 - ?), 26 February 1940, GBP 12.10s
Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 26 February 1940, GBP 10, no.3042
Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP238
Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP238
John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
Exhibition History
67th Annual Exhibition of Water-Colour and Pencil Drawings, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1940, no. 128
Bibliography
Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 152

Comment

Bury listed this as View of Bath, c.1777. Compositionally it certainly feels like a drawing from that period and perhaps Bury judged that Towne had made it on his return to the West Country after the Welsh tour. The poor quality of the image makes further comment difficult.

 

by Richard Stephens

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